6. Scan the PCI Bus

For this portion you need all of your video cards in your system and your monitors plugged in appropriately. Set everything up the way you want it when you are done, as you will have to repeat steps later if you change things.

This next step needs to be done from the console with-out X running. If you are in X, exit now. If your system uses a display manager such as xdm or gdm exit you need to stop that service.

If you need to stop a display manager from RedHat the easiest way is like this:

root# > telinit 3

for Debian, Storm or Corel :

root# > /etc/init.d/xdm stop

If neither of these methods work you, reboot your computer and start up in single user mode.

In a multi-head setup you need to explicitly identify each video card in your config file. To do this you need to use the PCI Bus Identifier your system assigns the card. At this time, all video cards need to be in your system.

PCI cards and devices are identified with a leading 0, AGP cards with a 1. In my case I have a Matrox Millenium II (0:12:0) and a Diamond FireGL(1:0:0). Find your video cards and write down the numbers associated with them. It is important that you know which number goes with which card.